


Schön und jung und stark

by liriaen



Category: German Renaissance RPF
Genre: Drabble, Drabble Sequence, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 14:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17003100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liriaen/pseuds/liriaen
Summary: Being anything but a catalogue raisonné of Albrecht Dürer's great and varied career: 20 moments in time, 20 drabbles in silver pen and watercolour, in glib oils, hazy engravings and bold woodcuts.





	Schön und jung und stark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dr_zook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dr_zook/gifts).



> Dear dr_zook, I know this is maybe not quite what you were looking for, but I hope you'll like it nonetheless. You gave me a stellar opportunity to delve deeper into Albrecht's life and time than ever before, and *I* am the one who received a great gift here, through your request, so I cannot thank you enough. 
> 
> (Also, let me know if any of the picture links happen to be broken. The title is, of course, stolen from D.A.F.'s 1981 track "Verschwende deine Jugend.")

 

**Schön und jung und stark**

 

**[Do ich noch ein Kint was](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Self-portrait_at_13_by_Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer.jpg) **

Father still rages downstairs: how it’s unwise and a shame, and had he but known, he wouldn’t have wasted time on teaching the runt. Mother argues he hasn’t been caned enough; else he would be a god-fearing, dutiful son who does as he’s told.

After a while the yelling subsides, the humdrum noise of workshop and kitchen resumes, and he leaves his hiding place. Humming, he props up the small mirror he’s filched and takes a sheaf from his small hoard of paper. He hesitates as he studies himself in the mirror: silver pen’s a bitch. You can’t erase anything.

 

**[Straßburg](https://www.kunstkopie.de/a/albrecht-duerer/nakedwomandrer1493-2.html) **

The bath girl smiles and strikes a pose („Like so?“) which she imagines looks worldly and lascivious and just a little bit coy, and he thinks, sure, show me your belly and your wide, fecund hips and your apples a bit past their prime.

As a foppish afterthought, he drapes her hair towel down the back of her arm. By the time he draws her feet he decides he wants no business with her toes, or any other part of her, really, so he gives her bath slippers.

Her shoulders, though - strong, defined, muscular: that’s something he can work with.

 

**[Mein Agnes](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_D%C3%BCrer#/media/File:Agnes_Duerer_1494.jpg)  
**

She's a scrap of a girl with bug eyes, long neck and a thick, untidy braid. Her dress is made of good velvet, set in small, circular folds, and the way she holds her chin (pensive, stubborn, resigned?) is enough to distract you from those heavy lids.

His father who's made the deal isn't happy: Three patrician lines in her family tree, and all she brings are 200 florin? But 200 isn't little, it's a house, a workshop of one's own, and he knows they'll get along: Agnes doesn't want him, she wants her freedom and a set of keys.

 

**[Welsch Pirg](http://duerer.gnm.de/w2/images/c/c7/Oxford_Ashmolean_Welsch_pirg_WA_1855_99-a_beschn_web.jpg)  
**

"Master Thürer!"  
"What's he dawdling again?"  
"He'll catch up."  
"Nah, he'll be robbed and thrown in a ditch."

It's the last he hears of his companions, rounding a bend and descending into the Cembra valley. He's glad for the peace; a rare commodity since his departure from Nuremberg.

When he'd told Agnes he wanted to see Venice, she merely cocked her head: "Make me a widow already?"  
"People travel to Venice all the time, wife."  
"Mhh. Well, bring me something nice."

His brush is swift now, water from his drinking bottle stirring pigment as he captures the mountains above Trento.

 

**[Venice I](http://www.zeno.org/Kunstwerke/B/D%C3%BCrer,+Albrecht%3A+Zwei+Venezianerinnen)  
**

With the Alps in his back, the light has turned magical. White peaks, waterways, sun-flooded plains and finally, the Lagoon: everything's a-shimmer with reflection.

He's felt giddy ever since they came down from Feltre, and now, in Venice, he is positively drunk. He admires the lofty, elegant buildings, gapes at turbaned Turks on the square, watches the busy milling of gondolas, the dories full of exotic cargo.

Thus bubbling with delight, he makes his way towards the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, and from their high chopines, courtesans and ladies throw him looks full of pity: so handsome, but alas! an idiot.

 

**[Pirckheimer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Willibald_Pirckheimer_-_WGA07051.jpg) **

"What happened to your nose?" He's making conversation while drawing, mind; it's what you owe when invited to a councilman's house on Herrenmarkt.

"Mishap at a joust", Willibald says, chewing through a roll with sausages and chasing it with wine. "They thought it manly, in Padua and Pavia. Shows my _virtus_."

"Verily," he laughs. As the fleshy features are taking shape, he thinks that his new friend doesn't so much look like a beacon of learning but a lecher. "Is it true you met Leonardo da Vinci, in Milan?"

Willibald turns and winks. "And what a great sodomite he is."

 

**[Das Männerbad](https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/de/werk/das-maennerbad)  
**

It's less refined than what he used to frequent in Italy, this hole in the wall bath at the far end of Schütt isle, but it'll do. Willibald is already guzzling beer, while the Paumgartner brothers - sanguine Stephan and choleric Lukas - look on with dapper faces.

He eyes his fill and knows what he's aiming for: something clever, something learned and antique in proportion, and something he can sell to the special customers of the bath house, so he aligns the membrum virile with the spigot and adds a peeping-tom.

"How witty," Willibald says. "Would this be modelled after yours?"

 

**[Apokalypse](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Durer%2C_apocalisse%2C_14_la_prostituta_di_babilonia.jpg) **

"I don't know, Albrecht." Agnes gnaws her bottom lip and pokes the pile of paper. "This could get us in trouble."

"Pray why, good matron?" Perhaps she's smarter than he gave her credit for. Or his graphics are too blunt.

"The Pope in Rome, worse than the Great Turk? The Whore of Babylon, living in the Vatican?"

"The Borgia pope is like that, beastly," he explains. "Everyone knows it."

She huffs angrily. "Husband, it ill behooves you to cast the first stone."

"Wait until Judgement Day," he laughs. "Believe me, Agnes, we'll have sold all of these beauties by 1500."

 

**[Grünhans](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Drawings_by_Hans_Baldung?uselang=de#/media/File:Hans_Baldung_grey.jpg) **

Blushing, he busies his hands, browsing young Baldung's sketchbook. "Too many Hanses in the shop already," he says. "So I'll call you Green, yes?"

The kid in the green doublet grins and touches his foppish hat. "Sure, master."

"Good, good. Welcome." He watches Hans stow his things, then returns to his sketches. "When did you make these," he asks. "At Schongauer's?"

"No, master; after." The boy's voice is proud: he knows his talent. "You like them? See, I'm determined to work only with the best." And then Albrecht squawks as Green Hans climbs on his lap and kisses him, deeply.

 

**[In the nude](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Nude_self-portrait_by_Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer.jpg)  
**

He bends, shifts his weight forward.  
He doesn't like the way his lower back looks, the haunch, the rump.  
He studies his shape dispassionately, like a butcher, planning where to cut.  
How much would it bring, a pound of his thigh?  
His cheeks look gaunt. (When did he get so old?)  
His free hand twists up his locks, fixing them with one of Agnes's hair nets.  
Hard to believe, isn't it, that man is made in His image.  
His eyes seem incredulous, sceptical; protruding like Agnes's, almost.  
He isn't so much doubting as asking, who am I?  
Is this Albrecht?

 

**[Venice II](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rosenkranzfest_by_D%C3%BCrer?uselang=de#/media/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Das_Rosenkranzfest_\(1506\).jpg)  
**

Let's see, what else? Rugs from Turkey, feathers for hats, striped glass in pleasant shapes, rings with rare stones, Aldus Manutius's new editions of the classics in octavo, and…

He peers at Willibald's shopping list and sighs. Granted, Willibald gave him 100 florin for the journey, but this is pushing it.

Giorgione, hanging from his shoulder, only giggles at his plight. "My poor wildman from the North! Tired of playing errand boy for your Barbarian Maecenas?"

"Yes, actually." He harrumphs. "Why don't we do something… nicer instead?"

Giorgione, eagerly: "Yesss. Show me the tavola you're painting for the German merchants?"

 

**[Giovanni Bellini](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Portrait_of_Giovanni_Bellini_by_Titian.jpg)  
**

He almost slips, stepping into the gondola. He twists his cap in his fingers, loses his gaze on the water. His heart is pounding. "To Zan' Bellin's, please," he calls to the gondoliere.

"An annual pension of 200 ducats, offered by the doge, if you, Alberto Duro, civis Noricus, take permanent residence in Venice?" Old Bellini beams at him. "How wonderful! You will accept, of course?"

"I cannot," he whispers. Bellini's wine burns in his throat. "What about my business? My friends, my house, my wife?"

Bellini spreads his hands as if to say, think, Alberto. Are these your priorities?

 

**[Adam & Eve](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Adam_and_Eve_by_D%C3%BCrer_in_the_Museo_del_Prado?uselang=de#/media/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Adam_and_Eve_\(Prado\).jpg)  
**

Praise be to God, they're alive when he gets home! The city is in a bad way, though: half the stores are nailed shut, houses he's called at are boarded up, their owners' names struck off the list of the living. Even in the Herrentrinkstube, seats are vacant.

Mother and Green who minded the shop look haggard, but the books are in order. And then there's Agnes who weathered the plague in Frankfurt, selling prints and enjoying herself, so he can't quite understand why she glares at him like that.

"And now?" she asks.  
"I think I'll paint something all'italiana."

 

**[The astrologer](https://www.albrecht-duerer-apokalypse.de/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/albrecht-duerer-magisches-quadrat-gross.jpg)  
**

"Oh, come now, he only wrote what he knew to be fact!" He snatches Beheim's horoscope from Willibald's pudgy hands and recites with gusto: " _Delicatus pictor_ , yes… _ingeniosus amator_ , yesyes… never will be poor – good! Wait, what's tha-" But Willibald has already grabbed the paper and rolls it back up.

"What does he mean, _dominatur tibi_? That I reign over you?" He knits his brow.

Willibald coughs and makes a dismissive gesture. "Ach, you know how he is. Used to lord it in Rome, now he's sitting in Bamberg with the French disease rotting his bones… No wonder he rambles."

 

**[Barbara](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Albrecht_Duerer%2C_Bildnis_seiner_Mutter.jpg) **

She looks sweeter in death, he thinks; the mean trait around her mouth smoothed out, her piercing eyes closed peacefully.

The last year, it must be said, has been one of suffering. They've carried her downstairs to better care for her, and he hasn't spared himself. He sat and prayed with her, fed her, made jokes to cheer her up and was reprimanded for it, and then: he drew her.

He caressed her with his pen, following the lines of her skull underneath see-through skin. The woman who bore him and seventeen siblings: in what form shall they meet again?

 

**[aws grossen engsten geholffen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Melencolia_I_MET_DP820348.jpg)  
**

Like Melencolia, he sits with idle hands. Too heavy to get up. There's a weight on his chest, and he wishes Hans Green were here to amuse him with his coarse ways and woodcuts of witches, but Hans is in Straßburg.

The year is 1518, and the world is in uproar since Doctor Martinus stated that good works aren't enough. So, is his art vain? His attempts at _Imitatio Christi_ a lickspittle's endeavour?

On the other hand: if Luther is right with "sola fide", if man is saved by the grace of God alone, he can continue to paint, right?

 

**[Engelsche Straat 19](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_Antwerp_Harbour_-_WGA07090.jpg)  
**

He expected Agnes to need a lie-down once they arrived, but now it’s him who’s supine on the coverlet with his head throbbing fiercely.

Perhaps the August heat got to him, or the stench of Antwerp's tidal harbour - or the prospect of having to ask young Karl, again, for the pension his grandsire the emperor had already promised him.

"Albrecht," Agnes trills, excitedly, "it's splendid! Look at the stained glass! What lovely rooms we have. Oh, and," she jiggles his shoulder, "someone from the Mayor called. Albrecht? You're invited to dinner!”, but exhaustion has washed his senses out to sea.

 

**[Fremde Welten](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer?uselang=de#/media/File:Embroidery_Pattern_with_Seven_Six-pointed_Stars_and_Four_Corner_Pieces_MET_DP816472.jpg)  
**

The gold of Tenochtitlan is brighter than any metal he, the goldsmith’s son, has ever seen. Weapons, armour, jewellery and objects of daily use: everything is made with a subtlety that takes his breath away. “Wonderful, just… wonderful,” he stammers. The beauty, the ingenuity fills his heart to bursting, so he attempts some quick sketches.

And then his stomach sinks, for he knows what a man like Cortéz means when he sends to Brussels, “the Aztec Empire has fallen.” It means rape and robbery. It means: these foreign artists are dead now, and their wondrous works shall be melted down.

 

**[Katherina allt 20 jar](http://images.zeno.org/Kunstwerke/I/big/2540047a.jpg)  
**

„Have you heard of the whale carcass, in Seeland?” he asks while his pen flies across paper. “’Tis said it was big as a house!”

The girl remains silent.

“Seems the currents pulled it back in before we got to the coast,” he sighs, “so the trip was for naught.” Besides, he’d almost drowned, and had returned to Antwerp with a fever.

“Will you take much longer, master?” she says eventually. “I need to get back to the kitchen.”

“Of course. All done. I’m sorry, Katherina,” he babbles, flinching from her dejection. Katherina is probably not even her real name.

 

**[Der Pelz (Selbstportrait)](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCrers_Selbstbildnisse#/media/File:D%C3%BCrer_-_Selbstbildnis_im_Pelzrock_-_Alte_Pinakothek.jpg)  
**

He can’t see well, so he asks Pirckheimer, “Describe it to me.”

The fat old man blows his nose. First his voice quavers, but then he finds his ground. “I see… great nobility of proportion. I see, at the threshold to maturity, my good friend; a vain bastard who painted his hair darker and gave himself the marten fur collar of an alderman because he wanted to be _someone_. I see a _Salvator Mundi_ , bestowing blessing upon yourself, because you couldn’t help it, couldn’t curb it… and indeed, why should you?”

“Mmh,” he wheezes and smiles feebly. “Why should I.”

 

 

 

.


End file.
